Actually Hawaii is the Aloha State, but every year countless Americans journey to those romantic islands to tie the knot or soak in the postnuptial sun. How fitting, then, that gay couples can finally join their straight neighbors in that pilgrimage.

Tom Knutson and Phan Datthuyawat were married in Sacramento five years ago; now, thanks to the Supreme Court legalizing gay marriage on a federal level, Datthuyawat can finally visit his family in Thailand without worrying about being unable to return to America to live with his husband.

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie dropped his legal efforts to block same-sex marriage in his state hours after the first such couples were married. A lower-court judge had ruled last month that New Jersey must recognize gay marriages, making it the 14th state in the country to do so.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg conducted the marriage ceremony between her close friends Michael M. Kaiser and John Roberts. The wedding took place in Washington, D.C., on Saturday, only a few months after the Supreme Court overturned DOMA and California’s Proposition 8.

The rapid evolution of attitudes toward gay marriage is a wonder to behold. On few issues has public opinion moved as quickly or decisively. Many who are against the formal recognition of homosexual unions are now resigned to the reality they will eventually become commonplace.

A look at the day’s political happenings, including what Texas Republicans say is the real reason Gov. Rick Perry won’t run for re-election next year and watch what happens when a woman bravely calls out Texas lawmakers over the state’s abominable anti-abortion measure.

Two MIT professors claim that technological advances are the cause of slow employment growth these past couple of decades; dogs are being treated more like children every day; and no matter what Pelé says, Brazil is paying too high a price for hosting the World Cup. These discoveries and more after the jump.

A look at the day’s political happenings, including Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s latest fight against student loan rate increases and what the top two Senate Republicans are requesting of the NFL and other major American sports leagues.

Thanks to the Supreme Court’s decision in Hollingsworth v. Perry, California’s Proposition 8 ballot initiative that barred same-sex marriage in the state is no more. But the measure’s supporters are once again up in arms after the Golden State resumed allowing gay couples to wed Friday. (UPDATED)

This week on Truthdig Radio in association with KPFK: Marriage equality isn’t the big issue, Congress struggles to pass immigration reform, Brazil’s World Cup protests, and what the hell is the matter with Texas?

This week on Truthdig Radio in association with KPFK: Marriage equality isn’t the big issue, Congress struggles to pass immigration reform, Brazil’s World Cup protests, and what the hell is the matter with Texas?

How proponents of marriage equality and progressives generally proceed from this point depends on understanding exactly what Wednesday’s decisions on DOMA and Proposition 8 said and didn’t say. To do that, we must look beyond the headlines.

We prefer to think of the Supreme Court as an institution apart from politics and above its struggles. In the wake of this week’s decision gutting the heart of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, its actions must now be viewed through the prism of the conservative movement’s five-decade-long quest for power.

The U.S. Supreme Court announced three historic 5-4 decisions this week. In the first, a core component of the Voting Rights Act was gutted, enabling Southern states to enact regressive voting laws that will likely disenfranchise the ever-growing number of voters of color.

Justice Antonin Scalia had what amounts to the equivalent of a legal meltdown in the dissent he wrote for the Defense of Marriage Act case, dismissing the majority opinion as “legalistic argle-bargle” and claiming that it promoted “homosexual sodomy.”

On Wednesday morning, the Supreme Court issued decisions on a pair of landmark same-sex marriage cases, striking down the Defense of Marriage Act while ruling the proponents of California’s Proposition 8 lacked standing to argue the case in federal courts.

A look at the day’s political happenings, including PolitiFact considers possible outcomes for Wednesday’s Supreme Court same-sex marriage decisions and “The Daily Show’s” John Oliver takes aim at the media and the government over whistle-blower Edward Snowden.

Last week on Truthdig Radio in association with KPFK: The stock market plunges, Afghan author Qais Akbar Omar reacts to the news that direct talks between the United States and the Taliban have already broken down, Texas wages a war on high school kids and the Supreme Court threatens the happiness of gays everywhere.

Last week on Truthdig Radio in association with KPFK: The stock market plunges, Afghan author Qais Akbar Omar reacts to the news that direct talks between the United States and the Taliban have already broken down, Texas wages a war on high school kids and the Supreme Court threatens the happiness of gays everywhere.

It’s as if they didn’t learn a thing from the 2012 elections. Republicans are on the same suicide mission as before—trying to block immigration reform, roll back the clock on abortion rights and stop gay marriage wherever possible. Why can’t Republicans learn?

An estimated 150,000 people took to the streets of the French capital Sunday to protest the same-sex legislation signed into law last week. Meanwhile, in the south of the country, the Palme d’Or, the highest honor of the Cannes Film Festival, was awarded to “Blue Is the Warmest Color,” a long and very explicit movie about a teenager’s wakening lesbianism.

After spending an estimated $20 million and employing 77 people full time to ban gay marriage in California with Proposition 8 in 2008, the church’s political surrender on the issue has enabled a cultural shift that is spreading rapidly across the United States.

Last week, one of the stars of the "soft" right, David Brooks of The New York Times, wrote a wake-up column with implications for readers who not only do not much like dark-skinned immigration, but are also hostile to such kindling issues as gay marriage and abortion. They seem incapable of understanding, once more, that these are family issues.